I think Mark and Bethany got overly caught up in the “pretentious” bit of io9’s article. The macro point wasn’t to say that fanfiction writers are immune to criticism because they aren’t pretentious, it’s that big media outlets shouldn’t pick on fanfiction writers because the vast majority of them didn’t publish fiction for big media outlets to read. Major books, films, and television ARE created for big media outlets to read and review.

http://twitter.com/LaneWinree Brian

I think Mark and Bethany got overly caught up in the “pretentious” bit of io9’s article. The macro point wasn’t to say that fanfiction writers are immune to criticism because they aren’t pretentious, it’s that big media outlets shouldn’t pick on fanfiction writers because the vast majority of them didn’t publish fiction for big media outlets to read. Major books, films, and television ARE created for big media outlets to read and review.

Poking fun at a random fanfiction writer if you’re a major media outlet is tantamount to bullying. That writer, likely, is not prepared for that kind of mean-spirited commentary because they never designed that piece of work to be consumed, reviewed, and roasted by a reviewer of that size, scope, and power.

http://twitter.com/Aelinwen Bethany

I definitely agree that it wasn’t the macro point, and I’m glad that io9 made this kind gesture instead of just stopping without giving a reason and hoping the criticism would just disappear. It was quite a generous gesture on their part, I thought. As you say, ‘poking fun at a random fanfiction writer is tantamount to bullying’ because ‘that writer isn’t prepared for that kind of mean-spirited commentary’. But I wanted to take a look at this minor part of the article to examine why we, the online media culture, excuse “mean-spirited commentary” as long as it’s not directed at someone small who’s not equipped to defend themselves.

My point is that mean-spirited-ness is mean no matter who you direct it to. Though if you direct to someone who can’t defend themselves you drop even lower on the moral totem pole by adding bully to your name as well as being mean-spirited. Again, I do think this wasn’t the point of the article, but I wanted to look at some of the underlying assumptions represented/hinted at in the article. Props to io9 for being so open with their process and reasoning, and being willing to apologize. Thanks for the comment Brian, as usual your thoughts add another dimension to that which is the fanfic conversation! =)